Executive Pleads Guilty In Money Laundering

DIGEST

WEST PALM BEACH — A Fort Lauderdale chemical company executive ensnared in a methamphetamine trafficking sting pleaded guilty on Friday to a single count of money laundering.

Lyle A. Johnson, a chemist and senior vice president at Spectrum Laboratories in Fort Lauderdale, pleaded guilty in return for prosecutors dropping the remaining counts tying him to a Florida and Pennsylvania ring that trafficked the drug.

Drug Enforcement Administration agents say Johnson was paid thousands of dollars for highly volatile precursor drugs and glassware used by two Plantation men, Alex Evolga and Wayne Jasiecki, who cooked and express mailed them to the Allentown, Pa., area.

Evolga and Jasiecki were arrested in late 1994 and cooperated with authorities, identifying the main drug ring leaders in Allentown. When DEA agents raided Evolga and Jasiecki's makeshift lab inside a Davie storage warehouse, they found some glassware bearing the logo of Johnson's company.